urge parliamentary scrutiny of the state within a state of the Khakis, especially the dreaded spy agency (DGFI). The interference of the Khakis into state politics will once again jeopardize institutionalization of elective democracy, good governance and secularism. The rogues fear social justice activists, critics, politicians and journalists too - Joy Manush!

Friday, February 14, 2014

Are Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh Religiously Motivated?

The first
month of 2014 was a tough one for Hindus in Bangladesh. Violence raged in over
two dozen separate Hindu villages across the country, ending in the murder of
two men, the rape of at least five women, and the destruction of many homes,
temples and businesses. Typically, the attacks involve assailants from outside
the villages. They continue a pattern that injured 188 Hindus in 2013.

In this South Asian nation of 153
million, Hindus make up a scant 8.5% of the population. As a minority, they are
often singled out for abuse. “It has almost become a norm to attack the
Hindus in Bangladesh after the general elections every five years,” Adhir Pal,
an elderly Hindu, told national media outlet bdnews24.com. When I visited his village, Malopara, this
January, every neighbor I interviewed seemed to think that violent intrusions
are a frequent experienced for Hindus in Bangladesh.

It’s easy to conclude that the
repeated attacks on Hindus are coming from Muslims, since this group
constitutes 89% of all Bangladeshis. But does the religious definition of these
groups mean the attacks are motivated by religious differences, or could they
be the result of one or more other factors?

As Adhir Pal points out, some violence
is linked to national politics. Residents say the attacks in Malopara in
January came from local people aligned with Bangladesh’s opposition parties,
which includes the right-wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its Islamic
fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e-Islami. The attackers, some of whom carried guns,
told villagers not to vote for the incumbent Awami League. The Hindu community
said their aggressors had correctly identified their allegiance to the ruling
party, but since they regard attacks as nearly inevitable, residents say they
voted for Awami League anyway. (The party won the January 5 election while the
opposition boycotted it and lost parliamentary seats.)

As a slim minority of Bangladesh’s
voters, of course, Hindus could not elect any party alone. But while the
conflation of politics and religion accounts for some attacks, it doesn’t
explain others.

Reports of some altercations describe
long-simmering personal resentments coming to a head at minor conflicts over
sports matches, wedding plans and the like. But in most attacks, causes
are impersonal. In Dinajpur, a district near Bangladesh’s northern border,
residents said their attackers were landless peasants who had migrated from
India years before and that the attacks were an attempt to scare them into
fleeing, leaving their farmland up for grabs. In a country where climate change looms, conflicts over land are not capricious
or surprising.

The pressure to grab arable land
recalls the preludes to Rwandan genocide of 1994, which was motivated in part
by overpopulation. The two conflicts share many underlying factors, most of
which are traceable to power shifts after colonialism’s end. What they don’t
share, however, is a religious basis. (In Rwanda, the Hutu ethnic
majority slaughtered the Tutsi minority, and the Christianity common to both
groups wasn’t the issue.)

With all that said, religious
differences probably did influence some of the two dozen Bangladeshi villages
that saw violence last month. In some localities, Hindu temples and their idols became the focal point of vandalism. The group
most commonly fingered as perpetrators for attacks was Jamaat-e-Islami. The
Islamist group has been increasingly pushed to the outskirts of Bangladeshi
electoral politics, but remains popular—and angry—nationwide.

Ultimately, the multiple causes of
anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh point to the complexity of identifying
religious motivations for conflict. But they also suggest that conflicts that
appear religious may be solved through multiple means—which means the
irreducible philosophical differences between faiths need not be a block to
peace.

In January, over three dozen
organizations held rallies demanding justice and protection for Hindus.
Eventually, the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister, and even the opposition
party leaders joined in. Although the attacks have not yet fully abated, the
majority of the country seems to want peace.

First published in the Religion Dispatches,
University of South California, USA, February 13, 2014

M. Sophia Newman, MPH, is a freelance writer living in Dhaka,
Bangladesh. See more of her writing at msophianewman.com